Come join Embrace Richmond for a special series of Mission Shift Training hosted by the Belmont United Methodist Church! Mission Shift: Overview When: Sunday, February 21 Time: 1-3 PM *Lunch will be served from 12:15-1:00 PM, suggested donation of $8* Mission Shift: Session 1 When: Thursday, February 25 Time: 6-8 PM *Dinner will be served from 5:15-5:50 PM, suggested donation of $8* Mission Shift: Session 2 When: Thursday, March 3 Time: 6-8 PM *Dinner will be served from 5:15-5:50 PM, suggested donation of $8* Mission Shift: Session 3 When: Thursday, March 17 Time: 6-8 PM *Dinner will be served from 5:15-5:50 PM, suggested donation of $8* Persons wishing to participate in the Mission Shift training to be held at Belmont UMC should email their intent to: belmontumcrichmond@gmail.com no later than February 18th for planning...

Come join Embrace Richmond for a special series of Mission Shift Training hosted by the Union Presbyterian Seminary! This training is open to Union students, alumni and friends of the seminary. Mission Shift: Overview When: Monday, February 22 Time: 6-8 PM Mission Shift: “Needs” to “Assets” When: Monday, February 29 Time: 6-8 PM Mission Shift: “Working Our Plan” to “Joining God’s Work” When: Monday, March 7 Time: 6-8 PM Details: The sessions will be held in Lake Chapel, Early Center and dinner will be served 5:45-6:00 PM each night. The price of dinner is $5 for non-students. Click here to register...

As we reflect on this past year, the word that comes to mind is impactful. At the beginning of 2015, we were engaged in asset-based community development efforts in two neighborhoods. At the end of 2015, we are blessed to be supporting efforts in seven neighborhoods with two more community engagement efforts under development. This rapid expansion in asset-based community development efforts across Metro Richmond is the direct result of the hard work of our community partners who successfully completed both our Mission Shift training programs and the summer Dream Catcher projects. We are thrilled to have had the opportunity to train over 200 church and community leaders in ABCD in 2015. The video below contains the highlights of this past year: The most exciting achievement this year was the expansion of the Dream Catcher project which engaged over 20 neighborhood youth in the community building efforts in their neighborhoods. As a result of their hard work, seven new action teams were formed. These teams are addressing issues of safety, community connectedness, economic revitalization, school strengthening and youth activities. Below is a short video about this project: Additionally, Embrace Richmond turned 10 years old this year and celebrated our 10 year journey with nearly 100 of our closest friends and supporters. We have captured the highlights of this 10 year journey in this video. The amazing year we had would not have been possible without our community partners, our donors, our wonderful staff, the hardworking neighborhood leaders, our board of directors and the countless volunteers who have served so faithfully. Please help us make 2016 even more impactful by...

Embrace Richmond had the great opportunity to work with the UUCC of Glen Allen last month and introduced them to our mission shift training. The majority of the group who gathered together to see what mission shift training could do for their ministry thought the opportunity was a rewarding opportunity and opened their eyes to the idea of working “with” their community instead of “for” them. After all of our mission shift training sessions, we ask the participants to let us know what they learned and how their perspectives have changed in result. Here are some of our favorite insights: “I now realize that helping is not always ‘giving.'” “I have a new way of looking at what real help is. It’s facilitating folks in taking ownerships to help themselves.” “It was eye-opening to see social justice work encouraged from bottom up rather than top down.” “It changed me to think less about how it might change me and more about changing the world!” We are so glad that they enjoyed the outcome of their training and are excited to work with UUCC in the future! If you are interested in mission shift training for your community or ministry, e-mail Wendy McCaig at wendy@embracerichmond.org for more...

This summer Embrace Richmond partnered with congregations and community-based organizations to expand ABCD efforts into six neighborhoods across Metro-Richmond through our Summer Dream Catcher project. The goal of the project is to teach neighborhood youth how to do effective community listening so that they discover what their neighbors care enough about to act upon. Throughout the summer the youth conduct interviews. At the end of the summer, they host a community-wide celebration and share with their neighbors what they learned. The project was a smashing success. All the communities that completed the project and hosted convening meetings, had between 20 and 100 neighbors show up for their year-end celebrations and all of them had enough neighbors interested in getting involved to start action teams. Most importantly, residents in every neighborhood agreed to lead the projects that emerged from the listening effort. The youth who participated in this project have exceeded our expectations; so we are not ready to let them go! This year, we are doing something new. We are inviting the youth who completed the project and who want to continue on in leadership roles to become year-long interns. They will each receive a small stipend and each will work with adult mentors to custom design an internship experience that best utilizes their gifts, talents and passions. In the coming months, we will be sharing stories of how these youth are working with their neighbors to be the change they want to see in their communities. You can play a roll in these youths’ lives this week during the Amazing Raise, a 36-hour fundraiser on Sept. 16 and...